His funeral attracted an eclectic mix of international mourners: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, center-right presidents of Chile and Colombia, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, President Donald Ramotar of Guyana, Brazil’s former leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Oscar winner Sean Penn and U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson. For Guyana it was a more bilateral affair: a century old border controversy between an oil producing giant with a population 27.7 million and a neighbour with about 775,000 persons and equally important for Guyana, the beneficiary of the generous oil facility extended by Venezuela to mainly more than a dozen Caribbean countries.
In his 2007 Budget Speech Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh announced that the Government had signed a bilateral agreement with Venezuela allowing the Government to secure a part of its oil supplies
